Zeitgeist Spam

In the House of the Hangman 382

In symbolic terms, then, Great Cthulhu should replace Minerva as the patron spirit of philosophers, and the Miskatonic must dwarf the Rhine and the Ister as our river of choice. Bananas don’t care what a person say – girdle pop idiots, titular head; we knew ourselves despised – football, what’s that? Busty little houses who can hunch the pod most mellifluously? How’s my fat sugar cube? Blue isolated on black and white screen. Stylistic allure can perturb an object. But I’m afraid the daily repetitions of the situation are turning my brain to mush. And Ciuciutka, several times I’ve wanted to imagine you laughing, and how you look when you do – and I can’t. Dust and its make-up: varied losable unavoidable / There would be no getting in the way of its own path by texture, if there had not first come about a lapse in speed; there were these dolls on every surface; inches mightn’t be the best measure of rain. There were fifty pro-union rallies in fifty state capitols today. “I had a thought the other night, a round unending soundless lake of whiteout, actually that a Car is the summation of so many efforts and specialized educations bending on others, that of course it’s demonic and polysemous and breaks down, a nonunderstandable force in our midsts same as an icebox door or anything.” Atmospheric veils of paint coat four mounds of soil, which seem to spill from the upper balcony into the enormous space. Styrofoam shards rise out of the seductive mountains. Leave your body and shake hands with yourself, gain an extra limb or change into a robot for a while. I bit a piece of my tongue off when they opened my back. A turtle stretched its neck farther than I thought possible. I told a swan There’s watery light reflecting off your belly. One smiling black man propped his head on the thinnest of papers (AM News). One Asian man did bizarre torso twists and two white girls mimicked his routine. Notwithstanding ss. 13.48 (14) (am) and 16.705 (1), the department may sell any state-owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state. Notwithstanding ss. 196.49 and 196.80, no approval or certification of the public service commission is necessary for a public utility to purchase, or contract for the operation of, such a plant, and any such purchase is considered to be in the public interest and to comply with the criteria for certification of a project under s. 196.49 (3) (b).

[Note: Sources: Graham Harman, “On the Horror of Phenomenology: Lovecraft and Husserl”, as quoted in I Garrick Mason, “Because reality is weird”, at Scope, 27 Feb 011, via Graham Harman, “Scope magazine post on Speculative Realism”, at Object-Oriented Philosophy, 27 Feb 011;Bruce Andrews, “I Don’t Have Any Paper So Shut Up (Or, Social Romanticism)”, in 43 Poets (1984), at Boundary2; Diane Ward, “CRACKS”, in Bernstein, at Boundary2; Alex Reid, “invention and operational closure”, at digital digs/Alex Reid, 27 Feb 011; Graham Harman, “gains reported by rebels in Libya”, at Object-Oriented Philosophy, 27 Feb 011; Rosa Luxemburg, letter to Leo Jogiches, 29 Mar, 1894, in The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg (eds. Georg Adler, Peter Hudis and Annelies Laschitza) (tr. George Shriver);Madeline Gins, “from Essay on Multi-Dimensional Architecture”, in Bernstein, at Boundary2; Martin Corless-Smith, “Miscellaneous Histories” (“A June Book”), in his Complete Travels; Michael Coffey, “After Quitting”, at 2nd Avenue Poetry 2; Richard Seymour, “Wisconsin solidarity spreads”, at Lenin’s Tomb, 26 Feb 011; Bob Perelman, “Repeat, said no one …”, in Bernstein, at Boundary2; “Katharina Grosse at MASS MoCA”, at Contemporary Art Daily, 24 Feb 011; Karolinska Institutet, “How to leave your body”, at Physorg.com, 20 Feb 011; Jill Magi, “excerpt from COMPASS & HEM”, at 2nd Avenue Poetry 2; Andy Fitch, “Monday (Late Spring)”, in Jon Cotner and Andy Fitch, Ten Walks / Two Talks; Wisconsin Governor Scott “Poodle” Walker’s “budget bill”, as quoted in Paul Krugman, “Shock Doctrine, U.S.A.”, at The New York Times, 24 Feb 011 (the Koch boyz swear that this isn’t for their benefit …) (Krugman’s piece also notes that “the bill includes language that would allow officials appointed by the governor to make sweeping cuts in health coverage for low-income families without having to go through the normal legislative process”)]

In the House of the Hangman 381

Literally, what lies between words are blank gaps on the page, but also paper, and the porous surface of inscription. There is always a lot that goes on between any word (!) – much more than hallucination of meaning. The stuttering “and”. Hidden reservations: sunken continents. As commodity prices shoot up, and become more volatile, the pressure to liquidate USAmerica will only increase. “This is not only a film found on a scrap-heap, but we might say a film found on a dung-heap, considering its relentlessly ‘excremental vision’, a veritable scatological apocalypse. This is a ‘shit film’, quite literally as we will see.” I just walked past the ceiling. Mr. Said did hit a blunt object. Then the litter. The gleams of silver and nickle seen as coins of light in the litter. A key, another gleam, an ancient evocation, a coin-silver spoon, a chipt cheap cup-shaped cup with a grey glaze without the imperfections of beauty beautiful because it is a cup. A large brown glass bottle of vitamins that look like beans. The tables turn slowly, about one revolution per lifetime. / / Salt spray. “I saw the brain. It's like an ocean.” I saw the ocean. Repeat, said no one in particular, repeat after me. In the beginning no one in particular saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns. A rod of iron fled into the wilderness of number, that no man might enter save he had the mark, one foot forty and two mouths, scored in sackcloth ruled by fear the name, Father’s name written in a great rain, voice to have power over blood. And the testimony of the earth opened the woman's mouth, and the woman fled into the bottomless pit, slain remnants gave great authority to the wilderness. And out of the lamb's mouth, I saw the feet of a lion, and the mouth of a lion ready to devour the voice which was not defiled by dead bodies, two olives, married under her feet that no man might buy or sell or see their dead bodies standing before god with a hundred and forty four thousand accursers upon the sight of men, of women, of a loud voice saying in a loud voice, repent, repeat, and there was given unto him or her earth, sand of the sea, I say a fly. And the voice went on to say how all nations drink of the wine of the wrath. It makes me sad. I can’t say what I think. Any technology so mature is bound to have its jargon. If you want to avoid wet dog smell, get your pooch his own umbrella – a 29” diameter canopy with a short leash connected in the center. It’s designed for dogs up to 15 lbs. and 24” and costs $29.95. I hear the dragsters in Pomona. Nature’s a lovely thing, but how much lovelier it would be without these gnats, and if the beds in the inn were a little cleaner, and if the death-watch beetles didn’t peck so inside the walls. Inside the snores of sleeping humanity and inside the croak of waking frogs; inside the whirring of domestic crickets, and outside the whirring of field-crickets. O blessèd turf, what a grass-eating decision! Leonce [entering]. O blessèd night, soft as the first that settled in Paradise! [He notices Lena and approaches her …]. It took literally one second to vote down union rights in the Wisconsin Assembly.

[Note: Sources: Jussi Parikka, “Bookmachines, Soundmachines”, at Machineology, 9 May 010; Rae Armantrout, “Begin”, in 43 Poets (1984) (ed. Charles Bernstein), at Boundary2; Matt Stoller, as quoted in Jodi Dean, “Matt Stoller: The Liquidation of Society versus the Global Labor Revival « naked capitalism”, at I cite, 26 Feb 011; Benjamin Noys, epigraph to S C Hickman, “Benjamin Noys: Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend Shitfest; or, Satire as Anal/yse”, at Dark Chemistry, 26 Feb 011; Clark Coolidge, “Powers That Be Too”, in Bernstein, at Boundary2; Graham Harman, “police trial postponed in beating death of blogger Khaled Said”, at Object-Oriented Philosophy, 26 Feb 011; Robert Duncan, “Salvages: An Evening Piece”, as quoted in Tom Clark, “Robert Duncan: Salvages: An Evening Piece”, at Tom Clark Beyond the Pale, 26 Feb 011; Kit Robinson, “Edited by Hand”, from Autocthonous Redaction, in Bernstein, at Boundary2; Bob Perelman, “Repeat, said no one …”, in Bernstein, at Boundary2; Julie, “Fido can stand under my Dogbrella ella ella ay ay ay”, at The Gadgeteer, 25 Feb 011; JBR; Georg Büchner, Leonce and Lena, in Georg Büchner: Complete Plays and Prose (tr. Carl Richard Mueller); JBR]

In the House of the Hangman 380

Breast milk ice cream coming to London. The world’s last coral reef may be gone by 2050. I am telegraphed whole. If you could only make a choice, I could say, for example, well the Male prefers pancakes and that must mean something. When in the galleries, I could point to the portrait of an ancestor and say ‘the male’s pancakes’ and everyone would laugh from the pleasure, maybe. So where Balzac’s story famously opens, “I was deep in one of those daydreams which overtake even the shallowest of people, in the midst of the most tumultuous parties.” You are a mighty sparrow!!!! How long had the new sea-cavern city survived? Was it still down there, a stony corpse in eternal blackness? Had the frightful Mi-Go been a menace in a database? Database is narrative, “is perhaps entirely the excess of itself, smeared ash and flame upon zero, and zero is immense.” Land’s End. It is late winter, 2011, & the tyrant says some villains have given the crowd a pill & it is this pill that moves the crowd ceaselessly from the city toward the city & ceaselessly from the crowd to the crowd. Then Universally Good also said to the assembly, “In the land masses of this ocean of worlds are seas of fragrant waters, as numerous as atoms in unspeakably many Buddha-fields. All beautiful jewels adorn the floors of those seas; gems of exquisite fragrances adorn their shores. They are meshed with luminous diamonds. Their fragrant waters shine with the colors of all jewels. Flowers of all kinds of gems swirl on their surfaces. Sandalwood powder settles on the bottom of the seas. They emanate the sounds of Buddhas’ speech. They radiate jewellike light. . . . There are unspeakable hundreds of thousands of billions of trillions of banners of ten precious elements, banners of belled gauze of raiments of all jewels, as many as sand grains in the Ganges river, jewel flower palaces of boundless forms, as many as sand grains in the Ganges river, a hundred thousand billion trillion lotus castles of ten precious substances, forests of jewel trees as many as atoms in four continents, networks of flaming jewels, as many sandalwood perfumes as grains of sand in the Ganges, and jewels of blazing radiance emitting the sounds of Buddhas’ speech; unspeakable hundreds of thousands of billions of trillions of walls made of all jewels surround all of them, adorning everywhere." The Game of Life played on the surface of a torus … Must try not to get killed before finishing this because nobody else’s going to be able to read my handwriting … We cannot move. We cannot control the pacing or mind of this movie. The lost echo attached to the image intensifies the tension like an erotic heartbeat. Give it to me. The cons for that are very strong. It’s the role most like me. That ends. There was no sign of the police or army on the streets, and the government says it is ready for compromise. The longest snake on earth ends at thirty-odd feet. Sex reddens upon justice, habit forming. Oil spillages of Exxon Valdez every year for 50 years in Niger Delta. (This is almost impossible to let sink in.) Offshore platforms, flaring. Madison Pizza. Our art is unimportant, but that does not matter. We were born to this means and we must make more of our situation than at first it will seem ever to allow. Romeo the fox has been living on the 72nd floor of a Canary Wharf accumulatory glass priapus. Captured then released. (Credit where due: given the methodology of evasion (performed cringe successful: weaponised sentimentality win) you were correct to argue against the deployment of Agent Lupus for this operation.) [Every hole in the earth must be anthropomorphized, insofar as that means doing something that humans do at the moment when they seem least human: spitting, swallowing, gurgling, roaring, weeping. Made as if human to be made barely human, to try and register the shock, the frenzy of verbs outdo each other through the frothy news. Like a mass murderer in the cottage next door. We thought Eyja was quiet, good company, a bit strange, but kept to itself. I mean, you never know, but who could have seen this coming, this explosion, this exhaling, this monstrous outburst? It provided the occasion for a dirty thunderstorm, which is at once the single greatest meteorological phenomenon of all time, and the single greatest name for a meteorological phenomenon. When all the ash and rock and ice in the volcanic plume rub together and produce a static charge and lighting strikes during an eruption. It belongs less to an incident that upset the movements of capital and more to a black, neon airbrushed hair metal shirt.]

[Note: Sources: “Breast Milk Ice Cream Coming to London Shop”, at The Huffington Post, 25 Feb 011; “Coral Reefs May Be Gone By 2050: study”, at The Huffington Post, 25 Feb 011; Anne Gorrick; Carla Harryman, “THE MALE”, in 43 Poets (1984) (ed. Charles Bernstein) at Boundary2; JBR; intro to Michael Klauke, “from Ad Infinitum”, in Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing (eds. Craig Dworkin and Kenneth Goldsmith); Bill Kennedy and Darren Wershler, Apostrophe, in Dworkin/Goldsmith; H P Lovecraft, The Mountains of Madness; Timothy Morton, “ Rutgers Eco Conference: Ursula Heise talk”, at Ecology without Nature, 25 Feb 011 (database is narrative is, apparently a position held by Katherine Hayles); Nick Land, The Thirst for Annihilation, as quoted in S C Hickman, “Nick Land: Anomalaous [sic] Materials and the Zero Point Blues”, at Dark Chemistry, 25 Feb 011; Larry Price, “CRUDE THINKING”, in Bernstein, at Boundary2; Anne Boyer, “Il Pie Fermo”, at Odalisqued, 25 Feb 011; The Flower-Ornament Scripture: A Translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra (tr. Thomas Cleary), as quoted in Marcus Boon, In Praise of Copying; Peter Manson, Adjunct: An Undigest, in Dworkin/Goldsmith; Abigail Child, “BLUEPRINT FOR A SCENARIO (1)”, in Bernstein, at Boundary2; “Bahrain unrest: Tens of thousands rally in Pearl Square”, at BBC News, 25 Feb 011, via Graham Harman, “more from Bahrain”, at Object-Oriented Philosophy, 25 Feb 011; Wisława Szymborska, “Pi”, as quoted in Traci Lynn Matlock, “Pi by Wislawa Szymborska”, at The Noumenon Revelation (deleted post); Fiona Templeton, Hi Cowboy! Enclosed why you are wrong though I agree with you. Cuddles, in Bernstein, at Boundary2; Timothy Morton, “Rutgers Eco Conference: Rob Nixon’s talk”, at Ecology without Nature, 25 Feb 011; JBR (a reference to the fact that certain pizza shops in Madison will only sell to those demonstrating against the governor’s union-busting efforts); Steven Rodefer, “Enclosure of Elk”, in Bernstein, at Boundary2; “Fox lived in the Shard skyscraper at London Bridge”, at BBC News, 24 Feb 011; China Miéville, “Message to ECW”, at Rejectamentalist Manifesto, 25 Feb 011 (the BBC article was found because of this post); [Evan Calder Williams, “Ash”, as quoted in his “ASH, NOTHING, OIL (Stuck engines, sexiness, and extinction in the holes of the year)”, at Socialism and/or Barbarism, 21 Feb 011]

In the House of the Hangman 379

Then I command the stage again, as embodied activism this time           a
                                                                                                 gone time
from a before then if so therefore without pretense                  this phrase,
                                                                                       this constituent,
this color lily I’ve never seen before a calculated blue. Standing here as I am away from Ave A, styling a Kmart coat rabbit fur lined collar & my afro wig, [writing in pauses] trying to capture the text, the narrative in [of] the pauses, in recalling the details, I may have forgotten the particulars, of say, for example, I dreamt of a baby last night. It wasn’t Rose’s, it wasn’t mine. Maybe it was a soul migrating. What does “change the world” mean? Obviously someone ran the numbers on the plasma shoe-in at the junction of the throttle-wink and the clenched teeth of http nothing else but teeth. Today I thought about sleeping on top of the office building. I have no dog. Will you come to the park with me? I went to Copenhagen for a meeting. It strikes you immediately that inside a plane or an airport there are countless objects--people, clothes, food, conversations, all milling about differently. Or to put it another way, the inside of an object is bigger than its outside. Tripoli, for example, is precisely so many square miles, but if you’re in it right now it probably feels like infinity: tho that’s not what Tim means: knot anxiety tight about thighs, gust w/ … / inhaling the lapse
of cycle condensed your gaze vivid
… dry
/// …crack: the residue, our
…
……………………. ///
unassured façades sectioned in grapple
twitch all sample potency,
…; … a nul. The LSE Centre for Global Dominance oh I mean Governance accepted a £1.5million donation from Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, famed public asswipe. Students are now occupying the senior common room to demand the return of Gaddafi’s blood money to the Libyan people. Ah, but universities have to “diversify their funding base” – you confuse the image of a fungus with the image of a dick. [The Old Wisp Man staggers into shot. The television flickers. He points. The scorch mark, the grass sprouting in patches, the sun, not pink, grey, or green on the rubble.] Old Wisp Man: Look, here, look, on Saturday they damaged this part of the wall. [His finger slowly traces a round circle in the empty air.] Nidal: Yes, what a dream of a day! Our hands truly wailed the sky like almonds or to quote Augustine, The great reigns are only the enlarged projections of little thieves. There are many ways to transliterate his name. What if we are all sensual constructs, appendages of withdrawn beings that use us as sport to play out their infinite games of reality? So fucking what, I say. Such is the malaise of contemporary thought: it would have to liberate multiplicities and individuals; it would have liberated only universals, re-inscribing yet once again the modes if not under attributes and substances, the singularities and individuals if not within, at least, which is perhaps worse, as Text, Desire, Power, destiny of being, etc. Malaise within Difference: here then is a thinking that entangles itself, ensnares itself, enlyses itself perhaps, turns over itself and in itself faster and faster, substituting intensity for life and the acceleration of motion for movement, yet which thickens heavily like a ‘turning’ doughy paste. Is it still possible to open a new thinking that would be something other than a space? Conditions conturbat me, I sleep like the stone that will wear down the mill, “running up the wall…running up the hill”, a used but clean raincoat, WITHOUT ANOTHER LEG TO MAKE A STAND ON. There was a fire somewhere just north of, dark smoke you could feel with our eyes. Whatcha up to, dude? I will not participate in that defense. Teaching Reagan to count down from 100 by sevens is what made this mess. I don’t think so. Really. I hold out my hand check unstable turbulence a weighted per cent of viable capacity not exactly random they plan their garden extinction rate ten times Sustainability. Like what I should have done or been, or not, or not, or not not, nor do up and down mean the same thing as these clouds around us casting their vote-like shadows diffused at first involving silhouettes which however recede to lines geometricized into an horizon of regularized arms and mouths pitched widely agape.

[Note: Sources: Akilah Oliver (i.m.), The Putterer’s Notebook, Corruptions, at The Poetry Project, 24 Feb 011, and EOAGH 3; JBR; Alain Badiou, as quoted in Cengiz Erdem, “Alain Badiou on Tunisia, riots and revolution (via wrong+arithmetic)”, at Minimal ve Maksimal Yazilar, 24 Feb 011; Steve McCaffery, “MAGICAL HISTORY”, “FALSTAFF’s OTTER”, at Veer About 2010-2011; JBR typo; Vladimir Zykov, I Was Told to Write Fifty Words, in Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing (eds. Craig Dworkin and Kenneth Goldsmith); Timothy Morton, “Tardis Objects”, at Ecology without Nature, 24 Feb 011; JBR; Nat Raha, “to traverse (part-preface)”, at Veer About 2010-2011; Nina Power, “today’s protest”, at Infinite ThØught, 24 Feb 011; Rae Armantrout, “The Gift”, in Money Shot; Steve Willey, “from Slogans”, at Veer About 2010-2011; Augustine (the saint, presumably), epigraph to Erica Hunt, “(Two Poems)”, in Mixed Blood 1; JBR, in re: Gadafi, or Ghadafi, or Qadafi, or …; S C Hickman, “Plato's Socrates: The Art of Eros; or, the Final Country of Wisdom”, at Dark Chemistry, 23 Feb 011; JBR; François Laruelle, Philosophies of Difference: A Critical Introduction to Non-Philosophy (tr. Rocco Gangle); Richard Owens, “FOGGY MOUNTAIN BREAKDOWN”, at Veer About 2010-2011; Tom Mandel, “In Empire Camp”, in 43 Poets (1984) (ed. Charles Bernstein), at Boundary2; Jimmy Cummins, “when there is only one thing left”, at Veer About 2010-2011; Allen Fisher, “Human warmth”, “Human prospect”, at Veer About 2010-2011; Aaron Shurin, “Three sections from Codex”, in Bernstein, at Boundary2; Ron Silliman, Paradise, in Bernstein, at Boundary2; JBR; Laura Moriarty, “And to brave clearness I'd have given”, “La Quinta del Sordo [After Goya]” in Bernstein, at Boundary 2; JBR]

In the House of the Hangman 378

“Why is New York City awash in stand-up comics at the least funny point in its history?” How can trust in social computing be conceived? What are the differences and similarities between notions of trust e.g. in multi-agent systems, social networking sites, recommender systems, etc.? What are the differences and similarities between trust online and offline? This should earn the interest of the NASCAR dads and will help us during the next election cycle as we put up third party candidates seeking to represent the political interests of powers, and patterns, and nonhuman objects. Aronofsky, huh? Maybe he can make Natalie Portman slowly morph into a blue coffee mug or something. But when we sit together, close . . . we melt into each other with phrases. We are edged with mist. We make an insubstantial territory. BABEL roams and stalks these ruins as a multiplicity, a pack, not of subjects but of singularities without identity or unity, looking for other roaming packs and multiplicities with which to cohabit and build glittering misfit heterotopias. We seek to build desiring-machines for which no “join” that can be thought is overlooked, and in which “joins” a more capacious and generous humanism might arrive, and if only briefly, come to dwell in the queer space that is among us.

But in the alabaster hall that holds the
ancient shrine of the Aenobarbi,
how restless the household gods!
They tremble, the little Lares,
and try to hide their insignificant bodies.
They've heard a terrible sound,
a deadly sound coming up the staircase,
the Nether Blob
schlup               schlup
reminds me kinda like of the mouth of Willie the Disk

the Spectacle (in the Situationist sense) and the Spectacular (in the geological sense) freakily entwined. The homeostat’s world is lively and dynamic. Can you scan an ISBN for me? I’m worried that the ISBN for my new book might be the Mark of the Beast. In some countries, “inexplicable enrichment” is actually a crime. Sometimes 3s are Es. We have an ugly and complicitous side. What if the universe itself could be represented by a mathematical object? The overtone series is a “fact-of-the-world” that we expect to find everywhere we look: in North America, in Fiji, on Mars, and on the planets orbiting Antares. It is at work everywhere, functioning smoothly at times, at other times in fits and starts. It breathes, it heats, it eats. It shits and fucks. What a mistake to have ever said the id. Everywhere it is machines--real ones, not figurative ones: machines driving other machines, machines being driven by other machines, with all the necessary couplings and connections. A screaming comes across the sky. But whereas the “yawar fiesta” brings together principally the Hispanic and the telluric (the bull) with the Inca and the ethereal (the condor), the scissor dance is above all a meeting of the human and eminently modern technology (he-He-hAh-Hah-hE-Ee-hAH-haHhe-He-hAh-Hah-hE-Ee-hAH-haH). From the place where one stands on one’s chest following the logic of the dance gods will under renovation reverberation solicit attention near a play space. Will I or won’t I? I haven’t spoken to anyone for days. I stand rooted with hands that sting and are sore from the translation. I look at this star under candlelight and swear it has a luminous beak, black seedy eyes, I can see it placing simple but craftily-fashioned obstacles into natural flows and producing, arguably, an uncannily politico/aesthetic turbulence-ification of the 10,000 Things.

[Note: Sources: Tim Dlugos, “Ordinary Time”, in Powerless: Selected Poems 1973-1990; PE, “Phiolosophy and Social Computing”, at Anthem, 22 Feb 011; Levi Bryant, “The Gig [sic] is Up: SR and Advertising”, and Joseph C Goodson, comment appended to same, at Larval Subjects, 22 Feb 011; Virginia Woolf, The Waves, and The Babel Working Group, at The Babel Working Group; Eileen A Joy, “It’s Never Enough, or, On Being Fucked Up”, at SIEU.edu; Reza Negarastani, Cyclonopedia; JBR; William Burroughs, Naked Lunch; Simon Reynolds, “‘Hypnagogic pop’ and the landscape of Southern California”, at Frieze 137; Andrew Pickering, The Cybernetic Brain, as quoted in Levi Bryant, “An Ontology of Unknowability”, at Larval Subjects, 23 Feb 011;Stan Apps, “Squibbage & horned ISBNs”, at Freewill Applicator, 23 Feb 011; Graham Harman, “inexplicable enrichment”, at Object-Oriented Philosophy, 23 Feb 011; JBR; Graham Harman, describing the US, in “Hallward weighs in”, at Object-Oriented Philosophy, 23 Feb 011; S C Hickman, “Antony Garrett Lisi: E8 Theory; or ‘Surf's up, Dude!’”, at Dark Chemistry, 22 Feb 011; Daniel Levitin, This Is Your Brain On Music, as quoted in kalleconatus, “Daniel Levitin presenting some musical Speculative Realism!”, at Conatus, 22 Feb 011; Deleuze & Guattari, Anti-Oedipus, as quoted in Jon Beasley-Murray, “Deus”, at Posthegemony, 23 Feb 011; Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow (memory quote); John Beasley-Murray, “arguedasmachine”, at Posthegemony, 3 Jun 06; Charles Bernstein, “Ghoul Placard (“We’ve come to take your unions back!”)”, at Charles Bernstein Weblog, 23 Feb 011. Thurston – Cayley: Veer About 2010-2011. Scott Thurston, “Sustainability”; David Caddy, “Signalled as Ox-tongue”, “When the Redstart Arrives”; endtnote for John Cayley, Zero-Count Stitcher 1 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 7 • 8; JBR]

In the House of the Hangman 376 & 377

Or a suburbanite wishes s/he were disabled so s/he could qualify for a close-in handicapped spot. Suddenly, a street full of bikes seems positively idyllic. “We know how to make wine in the toilet,” a scruffy couple in matching t-shirts that said DIRT said. Let me just put it this way. You know that thing? That thing that’s wrong with most contemporary poetry? That thing that just never goes away, no matter how much Axe Body Spray you put on it, or how much duende you have specially imported from Duendia or wherever to stuff in its gills? Our official position is class piñata. I’m okay at this. I have many visions, also ideas. It comes naturally like an endless song you have to force yourself, always, to quit singing because you must be raw among the raw-angry trauma of the planet and pay the planet’s bills. The walls and the floors used to be gorgeous. Thunder has and has not harmed anyone we know. I’m a Nike wearer, you’re a Baptist. The citizens of South Park conclude: we have angered the economy. A person becomes stained when he speaks of how lonely he is. A spoon is a machine. A spoon is a machine for holding a piece of boiled egg. In a month or so I’ll grow bedsores. Of all the required courses I disliked solfeggio the most as my voice consistently refused to perform publicly thus causing myself, my instructor and my classmates repeated disconcertion. Half an hour later in a booth in Whole Foods, seated side-by-side, staring at your respective MacBooks, multitasking (1) looking at the internet (2) eating pineapple chunks (3) drinking energy drinks (4) advancing each of your careers (5) searching the internet for how and where to get married, saying “I don’t get it” as your fiancé scrolls through photographs of Elvis standing between grinning couples. “It’s what people do,” says your fiancé. “I don’t get it, why would they want that.” “It’s what people want,” says your fiancé. “I honestly don’t get it. Seems like people wouldn’t want that at all. We should just get an Elvis wedding, maybe. I feel fine with an Elvis wedding if nothing else is available.” The last thing the sun shone on tonight was already yellow and bright, a <—> sign coated with reflecting gloss at the T-juncture, specifically linking the widening trash gyre in the Pacific Ocean with Macondo. One says “those were the days”. These are the days. The Beast draws boa constrictors on the walls with blue markers. It’s exhilarating. I mean, why didn’t the matter and dark matter cancel each other out? How unlikely is it that atoms formed into stars and generated the materials to build planets? How many big bangs did it take before objects started to relate? How many planets, in how many star systems, in how many galaxies, does it take before objects link together to create DNA? It is easy to keep going, because, after all, every relation is singular among objects. Walked out into the river on a spit of rocks and let the water go over me, and through me, as if it was Tuesday, tho it’s only Monday, tho it’s Tuesday in Libya, and who the hell knows what that means? There’s a VERY ugly photo at Arab Revolution: Libyan Hit With High Caliber in The Head [VERY GRAPHIC]. A closed spiral lies on my plate, an almost blue flower like piss noises drive away the quiet morning and he gets a mind to play with himself by writing and drawing on paper and folding it in terms of balance in relation to the figure that came before it he’ll have set before him and so have a collection of creatures with long and short necks and round and skinny bodies like gourds and other vegetables. Like leafy plants. With pearly teeth. I like to use the term “humanism,” which has become freshly disturbing, and reminds us that we aren’t yet. (Human, that is.) The hair of the person walking in front of me is crystalline on the outside: I see every cell of the keratin material. But when I look through that, the inside of the person’s skull is dark space – and inside that space, everyone on the other side of the earth, standing upside down, listening: in this sense every loaf of bread is a monstrous explosion, even when baking goes right. At times the camera panned back to show the outside of the building and its towering monument of a gold-colored fist crushing an American fighter jet. But the view also gave a surreal image of Gadhafi, shouting and waving his arms wildly all alone in a broken-down lobby with no audience, surrounded by torn tiles dangling from the ceiling, shattered concrete pillars and bare plumbing pipes.

[Note: Sources: 376. Linh Dinh, “Driving Mad”, at Detainees, 20 Feb 011; Jennifer L Knox, “Nice ‘N’ Easy Medium Natural Ash Brunette”, K Silem Mohammad’s introduction to Knox, at Octopus 12; Shanna Compton, “We’re Loving It”, at Dusie 5; Anne Boyer, “tyranny o tyrants”, at Odalisqued (deleted post); C D Wright, “Everything Good between Men and Women”, at Poetry Foundation.org; Timothy Morton, “Fast Food religion”, at Ecology without Nature, 20 Feb 011; Levi Bryant, “Reification and Objects”, at Larval Subjects, 21 Feb 011; Markku Pääskynen, Enkelten kirja (The book of angels) (trs. Owen Witesman, Setti Mulari), at wood s lot, 16 Feb 011; Timothy Morton, “Hot Potato Teleology”, at Ecology without Nature, 20 Feb 011; Gregory Vincent St Thomasino, “A constellation. …”, “The first college I attended …”, at The Postmodern Romantic, 24 Jan 011, 28 Dec 010; Tao Lin, “How to Get Married in Las Vegas”, at Thought Catalog, 14 Feb 011; George Albon & Erik Wattercotte, in “Poetry & Art Feature: George Albon & Erik Wattercotte”, at Omnidawn Blog, 21 Feb 011; Heidi Lynn Staples, “ecopo”, at Mildred’s Umbrella, 17 Nov 010; Lisa Jarnot, “King Bee, Early Stones”, at Lisablog, 21 Jan 011; JBR. 377. Alex Reid, “rhetoric and/as the study of relation (or force)”, at Alex Reid, 21 Feb 011; Bhanu Kapil, “Drank my chai behind the Japanese Teahouse”, at Was Jack Kerouac a Punjabi?, 21 Feb 011; JBR; “Libyan Hit With High Caliber in The Head [VERY GRAPHIC]”, at Arab Revolution, 21 Feb 011; Brian Ang, “Freedom in Context”, at Scythe; Dereck Clemons, “Wormholes 1: Figuring In the Light”, at BlazeVOX 2K6; Timothy Morton, “Humanism Daily”, at Ecology without Nature, 22 Feb 011; Bhanu Kapil, “A dream of Michigan”, at Was Jack Kerouac a Punjabi?, 22 Feb 011; JBR; Jean Valentine, “As with rosy steps the morn”, as quoted in John Gallaher, “Jean Valentine – Break the Glass”, at Nothing to Say & Saying It, 22 Feb 011; Timothy Morton, “Anarchic Objects or, Someday I Want to Burst Out of a Loaf of Bread”, at Ecology without Nature, 21 Feb 011; Maggie Michael And Sarah El Deeb, “Libya's Gadhafi vows to fight on, die a martyr”, at Yahoo! News, 22 Feb 011]

A bill in the Missouri Senate wants to eliminate child labor laws (aka IT JUST GETS MORE RIDICULOUS)

Reposted from Detainees:

As introduced by Jane D. Cunningham (R):SB 222– This act modifies the child labor laws. It eliminates the prohibition on employment of children under age fourteen. Restrictions on the number of hours and restrictions on when a child may work during the day are also removed. It also repeals the requirement that a child ages fourteen or fifteen obtain a work certificate or work permit in order to be employed. Children under sixteen will also be allowed to work in any capacity in a motel, resort or hotel where sleeping accommodations are furnished. It also removes the authority of the director of the Division of Labor Standards to inspect employers who employ children and to require them to keep certain records for children they employ. It also repeals the presumption that the presence of a child in a workplace is evidence of employment.

[Note: Who ARE these people???]

In the House of the Hangman 375

Into the image -- The face of world history -- Licensed transgression -- Where stones walk like men -- Color as crime -- Color walks -- The diver -- Could a cat be a whale? -- In the time of lapis lazuli -- Polymorphous magical substance -- Plasma -- A beautiful blue substance flows into me -- The red butterfly -- Color in the colony -- Administration by bluff -- Walking through fire -- Sailing through color -- Body paint -- The instrument of ethnographic observation -- Color and slavery -- Redeeming indigo -- Opiation of the visual field -- Sex appeal of the inorganic -- Color in Proust -- Crossover men -- Techniques of the body: what we falsely call life -- An hour is not merely an hour -- Cardiac fatigue -- What is the color of the profane? -- Color in coal -- Creature of the lightless depth -- As colors pour from tar -- Colored by weather -- it’s an epic citation saga of desire, ambition, weather and landscape; of drownings, freezings, murder and cannibalism; of alien architectures, bizarre conveyances, inscrutable soothsayers and esoteric ice-fishing techniques; of the search for enlightenment, the poignancy of fish-flies and the indeterminacy of maps; of prairie writer and double-agent Frederick Philip Grove, Gimli-born Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stephanson, and numerous other quixotic characters both real and imagined; of boredom, failure, madness, nothingness, unrequited love, best-laid plans, the Wandering Jew, the House of Squid and mysterious things that may or may not be hidden beneath flat, frozen surfaces, any word on those headless mummies? When I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell meetings they sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the speeches were free. Biodeterioration, over 10 foot candles, Lucite S-A-R, the darkening or fading, fading and alterations, for example, green foliage may appear blue, similarly skies because of the yellowing, wood pulp, rubber bands, damage occurs, corrugated board, newsprint backings, brittle and snap, a low pH when non-bleeding, perforation, gall ink, indicating presence, has been altered, lack of air, or cleanliness, in the vicinity of overhead water pipes, cockles on paper support, holes, incompatible, to or in contact, around its perimeter, rather than ultraviolet, support due to absorption, tide lines, inappropriate framing, thought is dust (just ask Reza Negarestani), and dirt, structurally unstable, absence of interleaving, inadequate and. Is oil an intelligent entity? Is “pink” important? ‘Voidal’? And where do rats fit? “He caressed her skin with a knife.” The excessive subject is simply one of a plenum of excessive objects. And when an iron bar clangs to the floor of a warehouse, it retroactively posits the warehouse floor in a certain way. For “Rocked Circle — Fear,” he stood at the center of a five-foot circle painted on a New York sidewalk while a friend dropped fist-size stones from three stories above, aiming for inside the circle while the mono cassette recorder picked up a lot of ambient sound too, notably the shifting sounds of bird and insect life that mark the arrival of dusk and dawn, which give a remarkable feeling of presence to the deal, which was like watching a crow fly into a wall and become ten thousand crows on the other side of the wall that move as a single, giant crow.

[Note: Sources: Michael Taussig, TOC of his What Color is the Sacred?; blurb for Rob Kovitz, Ice Fishing in Gimli, at treyf books; Peter Gratton, “any word on those headless mummies?”, at Philosophy in a Time of Error, 19 Feb 011; Allen Ginsberg, “America”; Marjorie Shelley, “Warning Signs: When Works on Paper Require Conservation,” as quoted/sampled/mangled/something in James Wagner, “Shadow Narrative 1”, at Esther Press, 19 Feb 011; Mole Sandwich, kristaloldier, Amazon reviews of Reza Negarestani, Cyclonopedia; Molly Anne Rothenberg, The Excessive Subject, and Timothy Morton, in his “Reverse Causation and Objects: Causation as Sampling or, The Excessive Object”, at Ecology without Nature, 19 Feb 11; Roberta Smith, “Dennis Oppenheim, a Pioneer in Earthworks and Conceptual Art, Dies at 72”, at The New York Times, 26 Jan 011; Marcus Boon, “Sublime Frequencies' Ethnopsychedelic Montages”, at Marcus Boon; Mark Leidner, comment appended to Nathaniel Otting, “Phlarf4President”, at HTMLGIANT, 2 Feb 011]

Scientist finds Gulf bottom still oily, dead

Reblogged from Yahoo! News:

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer,Sat Feb 19, 8:53pm ET

WASHINGTON – Oil from the BP spill remains stuck on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, according to a top scientist's video and slides that she says demonstrate the oil isn't degrading as hoped and has decimated life on parts of the sea floor.

That report is at odds with a recent report by the BP spill compensation czar that said nearly all will be well by 2012.

At a science conference in Washington Saturday, marine scientist Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia aired early results of her December submarine dives around the BP spill site. She went to places she had visited in the summer and expected the oil and residue from oil-munching microbes would be gone by then. It wasn't.

"There's some sort of a bottleneck we have yet to identify for why this stuff doesn't seem to be degrading," Joye told the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual conference in Washington. Her research and those of her colleagues contrasts with other studies that show a more optimistic outlook about the health of the gulf, saying microbes did great work munching the oil.

"Magic microbes consumed maybe 10 percent of the total discharge, the rest of it we don't know," Joye said, later adding: "there's a lot of it out there."

The head of the agency in charge of the health of the Gulf said Saturday that she thought that "most of the oil is gone." And a Department of Energy scientist, doing research with a grant from BP from before the spill, said his examination of oil plumes in the water column show that microbes have done a "fairly fast" job of eating the oil. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab scientist Terry Hazen said his research differs from Joye's because they looked at different places at different times.

Joye's research was more widespread, but has been slower in being published in scientific literature.

In five different expeditions, the last one in December, Joye and colleagues took 250 cores of the sea floor and travelled across 2,600 square miles. Some of the locations she had been studying before the oil spill on April 20 and said there was a noticeable change. Much of the oil she found on the sea floor — and in the water column — was chemically fingerprinted, proving it comes from the BP spill. Joye is still waiting for results to show other oil samples she tested are from BP's Macondo well.

She also showed pictures of oil-choked bottom-dwelling creatures. They included dead crabs and brittle stars — starfish like critters that are normally bright orange and tightly wrapped around coral. These brittle stars were pale, loose and dead. She also saw tube worms so full of oil they suffocated.

"This is Macondo oil on the bottom," Joye said as she showed slides. "This is dead organisms because of oil being deposited on their heads."

Joye said her research shows that the burning of oil left soot on the sea floor, which still had petroleum products. And even more troublesome was the tremendous amount of methane from the BP well that mixed into the Gulf and was mostly ignored by other researchers.

Joye and three colleagues last week published a study in Nature Geoscience that said the amount of gas injected into the Gulf was the equivalent of between 1.5 and 3 million barrels of oil.

"The gas is an important part of understanding what happened," said Ian MacDonald of Florida State University.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco told reporters Saturday that "it's not a contradiction to say that although most of the oil is gone, there still remains oil out there."

Earlier this month, Kenneth Feinberg, the government's oil compensation fund czar, said based on research he commissioned he figured the Gulf of Mexico would almost fully recover by 2012 — something Joye and Lubchenco said isn't right.

"I've been to the bottom. I've seen what it looks like with my own eyes. It's not going to be fine by 2012," Joye told The Associated Press. "You see what the bottom looks like, you have a different opinion." ...

In the House of the Hangman 374

“Some doctor was on yesterday’s Today Show...saying… ‘we have to declare having sex there is so much of it now it’s an epidemic declare it a disease so we can treat and control it especially the sex-crazy males in ‘the poor segment’ of our American society...’ I paraphrase but this is what she said...” The ship is sinking and the passengers are fighting for the lifeboats. ““Fight! Fellows! - fight, fight, fight!” First a whiff of RESENTMENT, and then the full stench, WE have been exploited, the other shoe will drop. “On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin!” Choosing the right kitchen hue is just one simple change to improve your diet. Why do you think Denny’s decorated in pink and orange? According to the Wall St Journal, “Pro-American dictatorships have more moral scruples”; sick fuck hilarious, according to me; according to China Miéville: Jedi mind trick FAIL; have they seen the footage out of Bahrain? White line of snow against top of still / / shadowed ridge, green of leaf on branch / / in foreground, sound of wave in channel, I was a week ahead so after returning home, feeding the cats, taking half an Ativan, and lying on the floor with my legs up trying to settle my sacrum and my worried mind I got myself up and dressed and made my way through this weirdly balmy full moon night, I am not watching the pots so they will boil. The days are finished and the new ones begin. They say there must be a “conatus” in things that allows them to change. And that ancient dream of a gentle landing … Eighty-two storeys from the Observation Tower. The photo of the week. But we can ask how can it be known that this is all we are? But how will we know when it’s time? What do we hope to see with all those glances out the window? What should we pursue? ‘[T]he wolf-headed comet to come, towers of flames and a sword planted in the snow’? Break it down. Though “in a world full of violence, destruction and death, or “madness in every direction,” as Kerouac would have said, the subject becomes nothing but a projector of the evil within society”, when those three little old black ladies in hats came to the door a minute ago trying to sell me their religion I just didn’t have the heart to tell them to fuck off and die. And yet, and yet, I’m glad there’s a candle burning for Rose in Rebecca’s Frida shrine. ‘What architect designed this lovely parametric ceiling?’ ‘A machine.’

[Note: Sources: Ed Baker, comment appended to JBR post “Republican House Majority Jeopardizes Women’s Health with Dramatic Cuts to Family Planning, Planned Parenthood”, 18 Feb 011 (a repost from Feminist.org); BLOGDE, comment appended to JBR post “Chomsky: Uprising in the USA? | Economy | AlterNet”, 18 Feb 011 (a repost from Jodi Dean’s I cite); Dominique Dawes, “Mindless Eating”, and a comment left by Ken, at Yahoo! “News”, 18-19 Feb 011 (the article ends with: “The next time I eat in my own kitchen, I'll be sure to turn my brain off and allow my environment to work for me. And since the majority of us are not aware of how our environments affect how we eat, wouldn't it really work to our advantage to become more mindful eaters?” Whoa there. “I’ll turn my brain off …” “wouldn't it really work to our advantage to become more mindful …” Hmmm. Ken, from whom I take the Denny’s comment, more than seems to suggest that Dawes’ notion of mindfulness in something akin to “shut down, shut up, and be manipulated!” Does Dawes know that? Dunno, but she does work for Yahoo!, which certainly does … Ken’s comment continues: “A behavioral Psychologist determined that the combination of colors was subliminally displeasing, and encouraged faster table turnover. People go to Denny's to eat. So feed them, get the money and move them out, and reseat a new group at the same table.”); China Miéville, “Jedi mind trick FAIL”, at Rejectamentalist Manifesto, 19 Feb 011; JBR; Stephen Ratcliffe, “2.19”, at Temporality, 19 Feb 011; Nada Gordon, “vomitophobic”, at Ululations, 19 Feb 011; The days are finished and the new ones begin: Melissa Kwasny, “Tag End”, as quoted in John Gallaher, “The Nine Senses – Melissa Kwasny”, at Nothing to Say & Saying It, 19 Feb 011; Graham Harman, “On Grant’s response in The Speculative Turn”, at Object-Oriented Philosophy, 19 Feb 011; Tom Clark, “Gentle Landing”, at Tom Clark Beyond the Pale, 19 Feb 011; David Bohm, The Undivided Universe, as quoted in Timothy Morton, “Scientism: A Choice Bohm Quotation”, at Ecology without Nature, 19 Feb 011; China Miéville, and Vincent Bounoure, as quoted by Miéville, in his “For ECW”, at Rejectamentalist Manifesto, 19 Feb 011; JBR; Cengiz Erdem, “S.C. Hickman aka Dark Chemistry on The Nietzschean Subject; or, the Prison-House of Delirium”, at Minimal ve Maksimal Yazilar, 18 Feb 011;JBR (it’s true, thanks to the most dear Ms Rebecca Loudon); Javier Arbona, as quoted in a news blurb by Orhan Ayyüce, at Archinect, 11 Feb 011]